She was still pissed about the burned cactus plants and soil samples. Fair. I had learned more about desert habitat restoration over one awkward Christmas dinner than I had ever expected to know. But she didn’t glare at me the whole time, and when she passed me the rolls, she said, “You look healthy.”
From Sienna, that felt like forgiveness with citations pending.
River had locked down the MC side of things as much as anyone could. The worst of the blowback had been handled. JD had buried people in legal threats, social consequences, and enough polished old-money pressure to make country club families lose sleep. The rich girls who thought they could ruin me had discovered that group chats, videos, Snapchats, and grave cameras were not as erasable as they believed.
But memories in places like Santa Fe were short and long at the same time.
Short when it came to facts.
Long when it came to gossip.
People forgot what really happened. They remembered what felt satisfying to repeat.
So it was better for me to stay in California.
Better to start over in Los Angeles, where everyone was too obsessed with their own reinvention to care much about mine.
That was what I told myself.
Most days, I believed it.
Some days, I didn’t.
Some days, usually when I was driving alone down Pacific Coast Highway with the windows cracked and the ocean flashing silver beside me, I thought about Cabo.
The palm tree.
The outdoor shower.
The diamonds in my ears and Dylan’s mother-of-pearl cuff sliding cool around my wrist.
I did not wear the cuff every day.
That would have been pathetic.
I wore it more than I admitted.
Usually hidden under long sleeves. Sometimes on nights when Lily and I went out and I wanted to feel braver than I was. Sometimes when I had a bad dream. Sometimes when a date with a perfectly nice boy left me feeling lonely in a way being alone never did.
I tried dating.
Of course I did.
Lily made me.
Regan encouraged it in that careful, casual way that was not casual at all. Edge did not encourage it, but he also didn’t threaten anyone directly, which I assumed counted as growth. Tarak asked for names, addresses, vehicle information, and blood types. I told him no. He said he could find them anyway. I believed him.
The boys were fine.
That was the problem.
Fine boys with clean shoes and clean hands and futures their parents had framed before they turned five. Pepperdine boys. USC boys. A Stanford pre-law guy who used words like networking and legacy without irony. A UCLA med student whobrought me flowers and talked for forty minutes about his MCAT score.
They were nice.
Some were funny.
Some were handsome.
